


The Secret

by aeternamente



Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 18:05:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2077908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeternamente/pseuds/aeternamente
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Should I tell the world?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Secret

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [the trailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iakDRoQg-sM).

It’s a balmy spring day in late October, and you’ve all gathered for a picnic at the top of the hill. After the last few months you’ve all been through, this time to just enjoy the weather and learn to be yourselves again is exactly what you need.

You bought your guitar, because they always like it when you play, and you always like playing. After the food and a few lazy conversations, you take it out and start strumming absently. Pedro is close enough that when your hand is at the bottom of the fret board, it bumps up against his arm. Maybe that’s the reason you’re not doing too much fancy fingerwork higher up on the frets.

The two of you have been doing a lot of that sort of thing. Casual contact that doesn’t look like it means anything, but you can tell by the studied way he looks in the other direction, by the way his ears go red, by the way he sometimes loses his train of thought when you brush your fingers against his—it really means more than you let on.

You’ve been carrying on with this relationship in secret for over a month now, and really, Pedro has been more than understanding about it all. He gets that you’re just a little edgy about being public with something so precious, so personal, and he gets that you just like having this delicious little secret that nobody else knows about…

But you can tell he’s starting to get antsy. Pedro’s a very transparent kind of guy. He’s an open book, and he likes it that way. He’s not that great at keeping secrets, and he’d really rather not bother with them anyway. And maybe he’s right. It’s not that you care what people think, really. You have no reason to believe anyone who really matters wouldn’t be completely cool with it. It’s just kind of a big step. Your first real boyfriend. They might make a big deal of it, and you don’t really like when people make a big deal of things.

_But maybe it’s time,_  you think as you watch Pedro playing catch with a few of the other guys. You’re still strumming along for Hero and Ursula and Bea and Ben, who sometimes involve you in their conversation and sometimes forget you’re there (which is all right too). Bea and Ben are tight-roping it along that line between flirtation and antagonism that they’ve been balancing on lately. It seems to work for them, but you’re glad you don’t have to deal with that kind of tension in your own love life. It would tire you out pretty quickly.

(The fact that you actually have a love life to muse over in this way still hasn’t stopped being a pleasant surprise to you. It brings a small smile to your lips as you continue to strum.)

At some point, your guitar has been abandoned, and you all find yourselves gathered around a spot overlooking the town. It’s a nice view, and a long-lost feeling of camaraderie pervades the group.

Pedro, in true Pedro style, disrupts it with a joke.

"What—are the two of you  _actually_  holding hands?”

Bea and Ben, the hand-holding culprits in question, quickly drop each other’s hands and try to look innocent.

"Because as I recall," Pedro continues, "—and I think everyone else can back me up on this—both of you have some pretty strong feelings about hand-holding. Pretty strong negative feelings."

"Yes, well, sometimes people change their minds," Benedick answers with the superior expression of a man with much wisdom to share. "I find I quite like some things I never thought I would. You know, Pedro, you really should try out this whole having-a-girlfriend business. It’s quite nice, actually."

“ _This whole having-a-girlfriend business_?” Bea asks in her most affronted tones.

"I said it was quite nice!" Ben protests.

"That’s not the point,  _Benedick_ …”

In the midst of their continuing argument, Pedro turns to you, and before he even says anything, you know by that pleading puppy-dog look in his eyes what it’ll be.

"Should I tell them?"

You know that if you said no to him on this, he wouldn’t push you on it. He’d just say okay and move on, and you would keep your secret a while longer. But you also know that you can’t keep it secret forever. You don’t  _want_  to keep it secret forever. And you could debate with yourself forever on right or wrong timing and appropriate situations, and probably never come up with a better time than the present.

So you look him in the eye and say, “Yeah, okay.”

Pedro grins and it’s like a sunrise. It’s infectious. You smile too.

"Should I tell the world?" he asks.

"What?"

"I’ll tell the world!"

He’s said it loudly enough that even Bea and Ben have stopped arguing and turned toward you, just in time to see Pedro planting a kiss on your forehead and throwing himself down the slope of the hill.

"Pedro, what are you…?" Your protest dies on your lips as you watch him half tumbling, half dancing down the hill with a kind of chaotic grace that is nothing short of mesmerising. He skids to a halt in the moment before you would have started worrying about his safety and spreads his arms ecstatically toward the town below.

"HEY WORLD—GUESS WHAT!" he bellows at the tippy-top of his lungs, "I AM IN LOVE WITH BALTHAZAR!"

You allow yourself just enough of a glance upward to see everyone’s astonished faces turning toward you, then you grin and go after Pedro down the hill.

You’re not near as graceful as Pedro was. You’re struggling to keep your feet, and it’s all you can do not to fall on your face before careening directly into Pedro’s arms.

"Guess what—" you whisper breathlessly into his ear, "—I’m in love with you, too."

Without hesitation, you pull back just far enough to kiss him in front of all your friends (and possibly anyone in Messina who happens to be looking up).


End file.
